7 Bizarre Beauty Products from Asia

If you’re looking for weird, look no further than Asia. In North America we’ve been held hostage by the beauty industries’ inane, boring notions that toothpaste should simply be mint flavoured and facials performed at spas.

Skip right to the products. I don’t mind getting old. I mean, it’s O.K. … my house is almost paid off, (relatively speaking) I can eat whatever I want for dinner and I now have the confidence to tell anyone wearing pajamas at the grocery store that they aren’t appropriate attire for shopping. They’re meant to be worn in the comfort of a movie theatre or a while cutting the lawn. Idiots.

What I do not like about getting old is the effort it takes just to remain relatively human looking and feeling. I itch if I don’t moisturize, if I don’t drink enough water I’ll have pillow marks in my face for 12 hours, and somewhere along the way my feet morphed into cinder blocks. Tiny, hard as a rock, rough cinder blocks that catch and pull and rip as I pull on the most delicate of socks.

You’d think with all these concerns I’d pay more attention to taking care of my skin but I’ll admit I’m pretty sporadic about it. I never go to bed with makeup on my face and I moisturize it every night and morning but that’s kind of it.

My friend Andrea, on the other hand has always, always LIVED for skincare. I don’t know why she even bothers with worrying about it, she’s as old as the hills and her skin is perfect. Glowing, healthy, tight. Again. Idiot.

So every year I get a big box filled with some weird Asian beauty products. Like this snail mucus moisturizer I got last year.

I couldn’t imagine anything topping that but … it did. More on that later in the post.

7 Bizarre Beauty Products From Asia

(thanks to the world of Amazon *most* of these products are available in North America. If they’re available, I’ve linked to them)

The Face Tightener.

I’m still not sure what this is but it feels very blow up sex doll to me. I think it’s for tightening your facial muscles. You chew on it a bit. I’m not sure why you couldn’t just chew on gum. It’s all so confusing but … I’m not going to question the world of Asian beauty products.

No idea. I had NO idea what this was. Obviously I thought it was some sort of drinkable shake. As most people would think. Except kids. They’d probably just think it’s a sippy cup and ignore it. It’s a rubber face mask that you mix up in the cup and squirt on your face.

From the top.

Note to parents. I’m sure I was just being stupid thinking it was some sort of drinkable shake. Your kids will never make that mistake unless they happen to be hallucinating from eating a Tide pod.

I’m not sure what this is but I think it’s a face mask for your nails. Which I suppose makes it nail masks.

Each of them fits onto the tips of each of your nails, like teeny, tiny fingertip hats.

6. Bubble Masks (also known as Cloud Masks)

One of the many popular Korean face masks out there. These became really popular in Asia around 2013. They’re sheets of cotton that have moisturizers and serums already infused into them. You just rip open the package, put the preshaped mask onto your face and prepare to become Korean. Just kidding. You won’t become Korean, it could be any Asian nationality. Japanese maybe.

If you aren’t into bubble masks you might enjoy the Sumo wrestling mask. Because there are very few things in this world that say soft supple skin, like a sumo wrestler’s ass.

I had to choose one of these fun prpoducts to start with so I went with the All in One Multi Cleansing Mask. That’s the one that’s second from the bottom in my photos. The bubble mask. Korean Face Masks are easy to use. You just slap the cotton sheet on your face and sit.

Things always get a little bit weird around here after Andrea sends one of these packages. I’m wilding curious about what it’s going to be like to brushing my teeth after my curry dinner tonight for instance.

Have a good weekend!

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Tonight you officially made it into the weird part of the internet. What am I saying, I think that happened somewhere between the falling down the stairs pajama shoot and the fly catcher tests. Thanks for another good laugh. Don’t ever change.

O.M.G. This is the best thing ever! I want to see how that flower shaped facial tightener works! I had to take a screen shot toward the end of the video, when you have all the nice bubbles, so I could keep laughing. Then the black paper falls down and you don’t even care. Thank you, thank you, thank you for the laugh. Keep on spitting. Did you take a before and after shot of your skin, to see if you now have the much desired SWB? (Sumo Wrestler’s Butt)

I hadn’t laughed at your videos so much since the centipede on your bed in December. The Dr. Jart line is extremely popular and unfortunately not exactly cheap, I’ve been dying for something from them for ages.

I live in Mexico so that is definitely not an option. In the big scheme of beauty they are actually not that expensive as single use but when you consider they should be an almost daily expense it definitely adds up (I do have sephora.com thou)

I was alarmed when I saw the package of Bubble Mask. It has something it says is a “Lip and Eye Remover.” I was worried how you would look (or see, or talk!) at the end of the video! But now I understand.

Reminds me of the first time I used a charcoal bubble mask… It freaked me out and I was afraid I messed it up. I’m not a beauty person by any means, but I just turned 32 and have a permanent crease in between my eyebrows from my almost constant pissed off/confused facial expressions… so I figured I should finally start using some stuff that says it does stuff to keep you from falling apart and turning into the crypt keeper. I hope you keep us updated on what some of that other stuff is like! I want a pic of you using the facial tightening dog chew toy 😂

Thank you for a wonderful start to my day. I had to watch it twice because I was laughing so hard (and crying) that I could not hear the sound! Hysterical! Was wondering what the great background was. Now I know. Ah, tricks of the trade!

Hi Lindy. So you *can* share the videos. Just hover over it while it’s playing and a bunch of buttons pop up. The share button is the first icon that shows up on the left. It looks like a boomerang. ~ karen!

I will have to replay the video at home so that I can laugh out loud. Being at work, I tried to laugh silently and my stomach hurt afterwards. I actually thought the Curry Breath toothpaste is to cure the breath you get after eating too much curry. We have somebody at work who is East Indian and he has never eaten anything remotely western (despite having been born and raised in Canada). He lives on East Indian diet only and I don’t know if this is generally known but if you constantly eat curry and similar diet, you end up with a really horrible breath. Kinda like all your teeth are rotting in your mouth breath. It’s quite awful.

Is there some magic associated with soft skin? Your post Karen indicates that world wide women, and probably men as well are searching for the perfect creme, lotion or potion to smooth and hydrate their skin. For years I spent many dollars on facial cremes etc only to find none of them significantly improved the condition of my facial skin…….it remained dry and after a few hours did not remain moisturized. THEN I was putting on hand lotion and noticed that for some reason hand lotion was continuing to moisturize the backs of my garden toiling hands. I began using hand lotion on my face and things are now moisturized on my cheeks, chin and nose. How is it that the hand lotion manufacturers have this figured out but the facial creme folks are still working on this conundrum?

I bought my parents cupcake flavored and bacon flavored toothpaste as a novelty present for Christmas this past year. Found them in one of those little gift stores that carries all the funny socks and books and such. Gotta be much better than the curry flavored I’m guessing! (And thanks for the video…what a great giggle this morning!!)

ok, now your Instagram has made sense, which gave me great delight ….. saw this video and I laughed even harder!! Then the backdrop fell, I fell off the chair!!! Thanks for the laugh!!! I can’t wait to see the rest of the stuff you have to try!!!

While the cleansing mask demonstration by the lovely model is compelling, I think I’ll stick with my new Hada Labo Tokyo skincare products (I do hope there are no snail butts in them).

I predict that sex doll mouth thing will only create some serious mouth wrinkles. One can only imagine how the Sumo bum mask ingredients were procured. And I’d rather not enhance my morning yak breath with curry flavor.

Looking forward to more product demo videos, and future gifts packages from Andrea.

After I stopped laughing, I realized that we cannot read what they put in this stuff. Probably best we cannot. The hockey mask effect was scary to be honest. Did it do good things for your skin? You are far braver then I am….

Hi Karen, disclaimer that I enjoy your blog, but I didn’t enjoy this post. I think there is a way to poke fun without stigmatizing a continent for being weird and “off” somehow, and I don’t think you achieved it here. I’m trying to be both gentle and direct here. Maybe think about how you could do this next time. There are plenty of crazy American products/rituals/practices too.

S … even the people in Singapore/Asia think these are funny. This isn’t the same as chastising a country for eating chicken feet or something else that we don’t find culturally appropriate or desirable. There’s nothing wrong with this post and if offends you that’s fine, I understand, but there’s nothing about it I would change. Also, I’m Canadian. ~ karen!